The Star Wars: The Old Republic Website outlines BioWare's concern over reports of long player queues to access Star Wars: The Old Republic, their MMORPG in the midst of its early access period. Here's word from Live Services Executive Producer Jeff Hickman:

We know there have been questions about the queues on the servers, so we wanted to take a moment to give you some insight.

In order to ensure that the service would be smooth and stable, we staged how we brought people into the Early Game Access program, adding people in waves. As you know, there are a lot of folks who want to play the game right now and we want to make sure they have lots of people to play with. Balancing this with figuring out when to bring new servers online to help alleviate the size of the queues is part art and part science. On one hand, you do not want people to wait too long – on the other hand, you want to make sure that people have a dynamic, engaging community to play with for long after launch. Either way, we have one clear objective – to make sure folks have fun.

While we can’t promise that there won’t ever be queues, we can promise you that we are taking this matter seriously and constantly reviewing them to make sure that they are manageable and reasonable.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 17:56:According to my router for the last 6hrs averaged:RX: 1.35kb/sTx: 0.46kb/s

That means they did a good job optimizing network traffic. That kinda thing not only makes it less laggy for people to play even with mediocre internet, its means they can save a lot on buying bandwidth. Plus it means people with bandwidth caps (an ever more increasing amount, even AT&T added them to their DSL a few months ago) shouldn't have much of a problem playing the game, so the potential customer market is bigger.

Yep not a problem Creston, though your mileage may vary and all that, but I was playing on Wyrm, and it was between noon and almost 6, so almost peak and not quite peak. It was busy and not busy in the first couple of planets too. But I have yet to see any lag at all, even tonight just before the server shutdown.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

I roll higher for the first conversation part and my character is nice to her. For the next roll of conversation he rolls dark side and just starts talking to this women like she's bat shit crazy and I'm about to spit out my drink laughing. So we get 1 more conversation roll with this women, and his female smuggler ends the conversation with calling the women crazy and agree'ing with her sorta how you'd talk to a crazy person.Now those are conversations I would have missed, but haven't laughed that hard since HK-47's conversation in KOTOR about meatbags.

I came across an imperial agent in the jungle, who'd been sacked from his previous job, due to killing all his underlings. But he did it because they were up to something!

(He found out afterwords) Apparently they were planning his surprise birthday party.

StingingVelvet wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 10:47:Brief thoughts of getting this to play as a singleplayer game, but shit like this turns me right off.

That was my thought as well but it's not very engaging even played as a singleplayer style game.

I disagree. A friend from Star Trek Online (and a long time Galaxies player like myself) were starting new characters. Myself as a super nice Commando, and him as a money grubbing female smuggler.We are questing along and we come across a news reporter lady who's have about 3 pots of coffee to many and is just rambling on and on and on. I roll higher for the first conversation part and my character is nice to her. For the next roll of conversation he rolls dark side and just starts talking to this women like she's bat shit crazy and I'm about to spit out my drink laughing. So we get 1 more conversation roll with this women, and his female smuggler ends the conversation with calling the women crazy and agree'ing with her sorta how you'd talk to a crazy person.Now those are conversations I would have missed, but haven't laughed that hard since HK-47's conversation in KOTOR about meatbags.

For all intensive purposes this is KOTOR 3, but Each Class has different missions with some overlap, different choices 3 or 4 times in a conversation, and 3 outcomes depending if you want Light, Dark or Neutral. If I have to pay 15 bucks a month to do each Class and each choice Light and Dark, AND do it with friends then so be it. So far I'm not disappointed, and really enjoying the game more so then I did in Beta.

Using a steering wheel on a Burnout game is like using the Space Shuttle controls to fly a kite.

nin wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 20:07:So it didn't have separate worlds, except it did, since there's this drop down list that says otherwise. And "You could get to anyone in the game if you wanted to" except that wasn't really true either, since they had to go back to town before the two of you could venture back out again.

Interesting.

I get it, you made your opinion on the internet and there is no going back for you once that epic move is made. You missed the whole point.

Aside from the technical bunk, HorrorScope is right, the GW model is/was much more user friendly for getting together with Guild mates and friends as you didn't have to worry about what physical server PLUS instance your bud's are on. SW:TOR is still a GREAT game, they just used the "standard" MMO architecture of separate, stand-alone servers instead of one giant (via distributed) server.

The point is, if your friend starts playing without your knowledge, and you find out and want to join him in game, you don't have to worry about what server he sold his soul to when he started playing.

But the sharding model is easier to manage, which is why it is picked the most often. Also they can charge for server transfers Microtransactions ftw eh?

So it didn't have separate worlds, except it did, since there's this drop down list that says otherwise. And "You could get to anyone in the game if you wanted to" except that wasn't really true either, since they had to go back to town before the two of you could venture back out again.

Oh, so once you ventured out of town, your friend could magically join you?

Hey if you want to miss the point go ahead, knock yourself out. I want to see someone in SWTOR Server 10 meet up with someone on SWTOR Server 100, anywhere in game, chat, join as a group and play together.

HorrorScope wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 19:22:It has instances but one world/master serever, many games have instances and separate worlds/servers, I'll take the prior.

That'd be because every client acted as it's own unique server for instance world. It simply worked in a DHT mode, rather than a static mode in a central location. I'll be around for a few hours too, while you keep trying to think of a way that they didn't have 'servers'. That's like saying every BT client isn't a server, just remember how inane and foolish that is.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

Wow, I must have totally imagined that drop down that showed how many instances of a given town were available.

It has instances but one world/master serever, many games have instances and separate worlds/servers, I'll take the prior. You could get to anyone in the game if you wanted to. Not like I have a character on Server 1, well I have a character on server 2. Without paying for server swaps if available those two could never play together. Anyone in GW and GW2 can get to one another. Where you at (name city), which instance (#), boom your playing together. Million people, no matter, they can log in and find each other if they like. That's my point. But you guys can keep trying, I'll be here for a few more hours.